


Riding Hood: A Fractured Fairy Tale

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 09:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21052328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Famine can make wolves of men, but even someone like Gaara can find a spark of humanity with Sakura's help should she want to give it and he be strong enough to accept it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or its characters.
> 
> Originally written in 2014.

_Hunger drives the wolf into the town – Estonian saying_

Don't cry wolf, she thought. Don't stay out late or the wolves will get you. Look out for wolves in sheep's clothing. Proverbs echoed in her head as Sakura hauled her garden tools from the small shed near the house back to the plot of land that grew the vegetables her family tended behind the house and thought of how easily a shovel could become a weapon. Her father had tried to awkwardly talk to her about that very topic not three days ago now that the raids had become more aggressive on the various village livestock. He had pointed to the pitch fork and shuddered as he explained how easily it could be turned against a beast or a man. Sakura knew her father and mother did not have the stomach to fight, but Sakura knew in her heart she could do what needed to be done to defend her village and her family. Briefly, she wondered if this made her a bad person just a little bit.

Squash, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic, potato… despite their spindly look they looked delicious and Sakura pushed back the desire to dig out a sweet potato and gnaw on it. Bad weather earlier that year had assured smaller harvests and it was going to be a lean enough winter if she couldn't get control of her baser instincts. Hunger made everyone cranky with that edge of fear that came from wondering if this year you'd eat every day. The Harunos were lucky, growing plenty of fruit and vegetables that they preserved and sold, but the family orchards were miles into the woods and at some point the last portion of the harvest would have to travel. Sakura found her mind wandering back to the pitch fork.

"Hey, I knew I'd find you here since I could see the light reflecting off that huge forehead of yours all the way from my house." Ino was wandering over, a pack full of aromatic herbs the Harunos would use for canning slung over her shoulder.

"Your screeching will break my ears one of these days." Sakura called back with a wave. Ino always had a way of drawing Sakura from her dark inner world into the funny gossipy one the rest of the village girls seemed to occupy.

"How's playing in the dirt today?" Ino sniffed and pretended like she didn't have many of the same chores. Her own family grew all the medicinal and edible herbs that people used in the village.

Sakura just grinned and dusted off her hands. "Better than picking at flowers like you. What's the news? You would have dropped your package off with my mom if you weren't dying to tell me something."

"Stop being so clever, maybe I just won't tell you now." Ino began playing with the end of her ponytail as if Sakura had stopped existing.

"Don't be like that. You know I would wither up and die without you feeding me news." Sakura couldn't stifle the accompanying eyeroll but Ino ignored it entirely.

Ino went from disinterested to excited in the space of a second, her pretty face lighting up as she tossed her long blond ponytail over her shoulder. "Well, if you put it that way… Kiba and Akamaru finally found some evidence that it hasn't just been wolves after the sheep! Now there's going to be a meeting tonight and my dad thinks Tsunade will authorize a war party to investigate the woods!"

"Hold on, what do you mean by more than wolves?"

"People! Maybe they're bandits! Or another village…" Ino seemed breathless at the idea of bandits. "It's been a long time since we had problems with another village."

Sakura leaned on her shovel and raised an eyebrow. "You almost sound sad about that. Looking to see a little bloodshed? A nice feud?"

"Well nothing ever happens here does it!" Ino cried defensively. "The most thrilling thing we see is when Naruto and Lee compete to see who can toss hay bales faster, or who can run the most laps around the village."

While she was completely right about how dull things had become in their corner of the world, Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to see anyone fighting, necessarily.

"You'll see, Sakura, I bet Kiba got it wrong anyway. This is all just a storm and it will pass and then it's back to harvesting and preserving until we're boiled ourselves." Ino scrunched up her face in distaste.

***

_He who fears the wolf, should not go to the forest - Estonian saying_

Sakura ran her hands a few times through her bright hair to get out any tangles. Grandmother was not a fan of tangles, or anything else that seemed particularly messy. Sakura, who had never had the flair for fashion that set Ino apart or the delicate beauty that made Hinata popular, relied on her vitality to charm people. Grandmother still hoped for better, eyeing Sakura warily like she was practicing to be a spinster just to spite the old bat. Her new-ish red dress, reworked from one of her mother's, would have to impress as Sakura helped with the apple harvest.

It would take half a day to walk to the groves, the better part of two weeks to complete the picking which had already been started by her grandmother, and then Naruto would arrive with a borrowed horse and cart to haul all the barrels of apples back to the village. In prosperous years they had to bring in people outside the family to help with the picking, but her grandmother had sent word that this year it would not be necessary.

Autumn was coming early, and Sakura clutched at her cloak to block the stiff wind blowing at her back. Even if the rains came now they couldn't make up for the unusually dry year. The scent of the forest seemed to drown everything else out as she tried to sense for danger. Tsunade had decided the possible threat relied on too little evidence to spare men from the harvest, but everyone was told to stay wary and be armed. The skinning knife, old and rusty from disuse, which had been lying on the ground in the shed was the only weapon-like thing that had made sense for Sakura to bring. Rumors weren't going to get those apples picked, and so even though her parents were uneasy about letting her go Sakura found herself alone on the path to her grandmother.

As she neared her destination, eyes as pale as lichen tracked her progress.

***

_Where you talk of the wolf, there it is. – Estonian saying_

Grandmother was getting old. It was a realization that hit Sakura as she was greeted at the door and folded into a stiff hug. Wrinkles she hadn't noticed earlier this year stood out in the dimming afternoon light. The tightening in her heart was a combination of the dread of eventual loss and the knowledge that the Harunos would have to make a decision about this distant orchard as well. Her father's desire not to be trapped isolated from the rest of the village could mean Sakura would have a difficult decision in her future, and her medical training with Tsunade had only begun a couple years ago.

"I see your father can't be spared this year." Sakura's grandmother, dark green eyes snapping, regarded her affectionately even as her words sliced.

"The farm is struggling." It was the same conversation they had every visit. Sakura shrugged off her travelling pack and unstrapped the skinning knife from her side.

Snatching it up, her granny looked from the rusty knife and back to Sakura with questions in her eyes. "This looks like it would sooner fall apart than hurt anything."

"It was all we had." Sakura held out her hand to take it back, as if she could stem the tide of criticism that was about to flow forth.

"If he expected you to run into trouble in the forest then you'd think he'd at least sharpen this. A rabbit wouldn't even fear you with this in your hand. My son never understands what it takes to survive in this world."

This wasn't what she came here for, granny's vitriol for the son that practically abandoned their orchards and their home, it was just a bonus added to the weeks of hard work in front of her. Sakura disciplined her face into a polite smile while inside she seethed. It hadn't been like this when grandfather was alive, but so much can change in two years.

"I'll show you your grandfather's scrapers and whetstone and then you can take care of this while I prepare some supper. You need to eat more, I swear I can count your ribs through that dress."

The comments about her lack of womanly figure at seventeen would be next, she was pretty sure, but at least she wasn't checking her teeth or taking her measurements like that one time. If she could write to a friend in another village and offer to trade her for a better granddaughter, Sakura thought she wouldn't even blink before the letter was out. Before Sakura could school her face back into a placid smile, her grandmother had returned with the sharpener.

"The knife was because wolves have been attacking the flocks. Haven't you seen anything of them here?" The abrasive scraper took care of the rust more quickly than expected as Sakura talked. In the nearby kitchen her grandmother stirred a steaming pot over the cooking fire and grunted.

"Wolves don't care a whit about apples."

"My friend thinks it's more than wolves." Oiling the whetstone, Sakura carefully began to sharpen the way her father had taught her. Gentle deliberate strokes as her keen eyes did the best they could in the low light. She'd always had a head for precise work.

"And what did Tsunade do?"

"Nothing. She said we should continue the harvest until we're certain it isn't wolves."

Her grandmother nodded, smiling a little bit. "The woman has sense. Take care of the people around you first, before you waste energy on what is probably a wild goose chase. People just want to be angry at things they can't help."

The skinning knife glinted in the dying light through the window as her grandmother set down a bowl of stew and part of a loaf of bread in front of her. Sakura was pleased with her work and thought that now it looked like a weapon, even if she didn't know how to wield it like one.

***

_Help a wolf and you will be bitten – Estonian saying_

Three back breaking days in and Sakura was getting sick of apples. The stickiness of them seemed to cover her and the scent of them was overpowering. At first it had been wonderful, to experience the sugary sweet deliciousness that tasted of every lovely treat from their celebrations. Memories of apple pies, apple candies, tarts and turnovers, even juicy raw apples or spicy cider gave way to nursing scrapes from the branches and cursing those apples that looked ripe but just didn't want to be plucked from the tree. The squishy rotted apples on the ground also had to be gathered for the compost heap, and that was saved for the end of the day as Sakura bent her sore back to wheeling the barrow. Farming was one thing, but her muscles never seemed to be ready for endless reaching into the heavens.

Later, she would appreciate the apples, she knew that, but she let herself swear and carry on under her breath as her grandmother worked a few trees over. It rankled that the old woman was so much faster and better at this, but Sakura knew she had a lifetime of practice and it wasn't fair to compare like that. She competed with herself to keep her energy high, imagining a shadow of herself picking just a little faster and reaching just a little higher. Naruto had taught her that trick, and it worked like a charm. She wished her friend were here with her, sneaking apples and laughing with her, instead of the insect noises and her own curses to keep her company. Sometimes she hummed to herself to break the monotony.

Grandmother had gone in to start making dinner, and Sakura was left to the compost but she just wasn't feeling it. Setting the wheelbarrow next to the tree she slumped down by the trunk and let the breeze wash over her. The humming of her tired muscles, the chirping of birds not yet migrated south, the dapple of light and shadow through the trees all served to lull her into a seeming trance. Sakura felt like she blinked once, twice, and then suddenly she saw something glow red at the corner of her vision. It didn't seem like much but she eased her head around the side of the tree to try to identify what she had hoped in her heart was an unusually large bird.

With a low hiss to mask what would have been a yelp of surprise she saw a man. At first she thought boy, but she amended it to man as she noted the height and the musculature through the strange clothes he wore. There was a handle at his hip, attached to a short sword with a curving blade that fully looked as scary and deadly as it was meant to. The house seemed like a lifetime away. She would never be able to escape being as tired as she already was, and the skinning knife was still sitting in the windowsill next to the kitchen so fighting wasn't even on the table.

Control your breathing, Sakura. She tried to reassure herself. The man was ravenously eating apples and paying her no mind. If he wasn't paying attention then he probably hadn't seen her. So if she just continued to pretend like she didn't exist then he would leave and she could warn her grandmother and then… what? No one would be here for days. Kiba had been right, blast it, and he'd never stop bragging when he found out. First things first, she had to get ready to run.

Collecting herself, she edged up the trunk slowly with her back to it touching the bark like a lifeline all the way. Once she was fully standing she felt her blood pump furiously as she tried to calculate how fast she could make it to the house. Quickly shifting her head to the side she no longer saw the man and immediately she knew something had gone wrong.

"Don't." His voice was so close to her ear she could feel his breath. Something sharp prodded her back and he shifted so he was no longer behind her. The sword point lay just above her bellybutton and she could attest to its sharpness already.

Beautiful, was her first thought, and she felt it was unfair a man got to be that pretty. He didn't look like anyone she knew, from his rust colored hair to his exotic clothes that seemed to hang off his too lean frame. His cheeks looked hollow from hunger and his eyes wore bags under what appeared to be smudged khol lining the edges.

"You're from Suna aren't you?" Ino had been given some khol by her mother once, telling her it was special makeup they used in Sunagakure. Ino and Sakura had promptly made a mess of it, but it was a good memory. Her words unsettled him enough that he shifted stances, but the sword pressed into her more insistently, it would draw blood soon if it hadn't already. Those green eyes that mirrored her own regarded her slowly and she wondered why she was still alive. "Why are you so far from your home? Do you need help?"

He said nothing but stepped close to her and grabbed a fistful of her flower petal hair, sliding the insistent point of his sword from her middle. Her scalp burned and as he got closer she could smell sweat and spice on him, foreign and terrifying this close his breath was sour with apples.

"I don't need anyone's _help._" She would have thought him calm, but he spoke through gritted teeth. This close she could see how pale he was, and the sheen of unnatural sweat to his skin. Disease? Poison? The pain in her scalp made it impossible to form coherent thoughts. "Tell anyone of me and I'll kill them and the old woman before I come for you."

He withdrew from her so quickly and completely that the sword he had rested at her side sliced through her dress and into her waist shallowly. The sensation was familiar, reminding her of when she had cut herself chopping vegetables a few weeks ago. There was the shock followed by pain, and she bit her tongue rather than cry out. The man's eyes searched her face before he ran past her, stumbling, and seemingly melted into the dense woods. Just think of it as being bitten by a wild animal, she told herself. Next time she would not leave the knife at home.

***

_What is the women's wisdom? To avoid the wolf and stay at home. – Estonian saying_

Her grandmother scolded her that night, as she cleaned and wrapped Sakura's wound. Handing her the sewing supplies afterwards she told Sakura to mend her own clothes and remember to be more careful in the orchards. Despite her harsh words, she gave Sakura two warm rolls instead of one with dinner and Sakura tried not to let the old woman's severity get to her. The encounter with the man had given Sakura far too much to think about.

No matter what his threats were she should tell her grandmother and then the village, but he looked fully ready to carry through on violence and she wasn't even sure if she'd see him again so what purpose would telling serve? His sweating and the dilated eyes told her he was probably suffering from something so it was possible he wouldn't live, which would mean the only purpose of telling would be to search for the corpse. Her training with Tsunade would resume once the harvest was over and the thought of finding a corpse on her own for analysis and anatomy study was exciting if a little grotesque. Those heavy anatomy books were fascinating but the beautiful detail of their illustrations so flat and lifeless. Then again, a corpse wouldn't be any livelier. Tsunade had told her that a real body was mostly runnier and to memorize the basics first and ask questions later. Wasn't she ready now?

Exhaustion allowed Sakura to sleep but nerves woke her early, and she practically snuck out under the cover of darkness through the dew damp orchards, knife in hand, towards the place she had encountered the man last. Her side still throbbed as a memory, or a warning, but she pushed forward as if finding him were the answer to a question her brain couldn't stop asking. The forest canopy was so dense it felt like true night when she finally found him, sprawled not a hundred paces from the site of her assault. He had collapsed in an awkward heap, and the jerking rise and fall of his side told her he wasn't dead yet.

Leaving him there didn't even seem like an option, however she did pull the sword from his waist and hid it in a rotten stump. Granny would never believe she had just found him in the edge of the forest before anyone with any sense was awake so she dragged him to the edge of the orchard first and with shaky hands checked his temperature and his breathing. His twitching looked too much like death throws with his sunken cheeks and sightless green eyes darting around. That foreign red hair was dark with sweat, and Sakura wondered how long he had been suffering from what looked like mushroom poisoning. The hallucinations and shakes would pass if he hadn't had a lethal dose, and she wondered if she should worry at how dispassionately she evaluated his condition. The dim sunlight peeking through the trees told her this moment in time was up and she rushed off to complete her cover story.

Bringing in a bucket of well water with her to fill their drinking jug, her grandmother simply shrugged at her. At least no questions would come from that quarter. It was another beautiful almost autumn day and Sakura wondered how long she could safely delay before calling attention to her patient in the grove.

***

_Humans look for the straight path; the wolf looks for the most secure. – Estonian saying_

There were only two beds so Sakura had given up hers. It had been quite the afternoon, pulling the unconscious boy, ("he can't be older than you" Grandmother had said) back to the house at lunch and wrapping him in a blanket. They had removed the loose outer layer of his clothes for laundering and had left him in his black underclothes, ("it isn't decent for a young lady to see a man without his clothes on" Grandmother had said). He seemed to have nothing identifying on him barring the strange tattoo.

_No other tattoos anywhere else,_ Sakura had noted. _That you could see so far,_ her naughty brain supplied.

There had been more work to do, but her grandmother allowed her to stop a little early to tend to her patient. Her first patient! Tsunade might be proud once she found out, but she could just as easily be annoyed. This was infinitely better than finding a corpse. Probably. Sakura's emotions swung back and forth with indecision.

In the evening, in the soft lantern light, he looked younger and less severe. Maybe, she thought as she sponged the dried sweat and forest grime from his face and arms, he had only attacked her as a product of his hallucinogenic mind. But as he woke up under her ministrations and those eyes fixed her with a predatory stare she thought she might be mistaken in that hope.

"Who are you." It was a question but he didn't say it like one. His voice was deep and monotone.

"Sakura. I…" _say what was technically true, always remember your grandmother,_ her mind supplied. "Found you this afternoon in our orchard passed out. Did you eat any mushrooms? They would have had a red cap, possibly with white spots?"

He was still twitching involuntarily, and every time it happened his mood seemed to darken even more. "Where am I."

"You're in my family's house. You're safe."

"You should have let me die." He closed his eyes again and either feigned falling asleep or actually did. Whatever the truth was, Sakura didn't care, because she was trying to conquer her own burning anger at his ungratefulness.

A corpse might have been less upsetting, now that she had had time to reflect on it.


	2. Chapter 2

_The wolf is happier when it's alone – Estonian saying_

If Gaara had a story he would probably say that first and foremost it was about blood. From his point of view he was disinclined to think of his life so poetically as to call it a story because each chapter would have comprised the same climax and resolution up to a certain point. He had arrived in the world a killer, and hated by his father for it. Siblings moved through his life like sand flowing through his fingers while he was trained to kill like a tool instead of a child. Shortly after his tenth birthday he was sent on a suicide mission to assassinate a nearby tribal leader and no one expected Gaara to succeed except Gaara. When he arrived back in his village covered in blood, green eyes clear and calculating, that's when they started calling him demon child.

And so it went. A demon had utility and he was appreciated in a twisted way, in the only way he had ever experienced, and he lived after a fashion. In his dreams he drowned in blood, but for all he knew that was normal. Once he had asked Temari about that but she had only shuddered, which was no answer at all.

When the drought hit the people of Sand were ready, being accustomed to the occasional drought, but as it stretched on and hunger weakened the people the diseases that normally only affected the old and weak began to take the formerly strong. Gaara knew the world was cruel and random, but the people his father ruled only saw dark magic at play. It was a curse, they whispered, and who better to be the cause than the person they all feared.

The rumors started small, wisps of thought dispersed by nervous laughter in small groups of people. Eventually they became rumbles of discontent, and eventually a clamor for action. They wanted his blood, but no one was strong enough to face him and take it. Gaara was too perfect a weapon.

Sitting in his father's meeting room, Gaara heard the words as impassively as every other order that had issued from those hateful chapped lips. Kankuro had said once that Gaara reminded them more and more of their mother every year, and secretly he was glad he shared as little connection as possible with the distant man he called Kazekage.

"Don't think of it as exile. Eventually the weather will turn and the crops will grow. The weak will die and the strong won't get sick. All those ignorant farmers will come to me again and ask for security and your time will rise again." Behind the door he knew his siblings were listening and most likely sighing their own relief to no longer be his keepers. "Kankuro or Temari will find you when the time comes."

He had thought himself alone his whole life, but once he left the city limits with a week of rations and his sword he knew what alone finally meant. No missions, no rules, no whispers, just the voice in his head raging over nothing. He wasn't sure if this was true freedom or a living hell.

Gaara walked east.

***

_The wolf forgets, the dog remembers. – Estonian saying_

Under the light of a black sun he gloried in destruction. The wind blew hot and rancid as he ripped through the homely domes that made up the typical Sand domicile. Brittle ceramic crumbled under his clawed feet and in his hands. Faceless people ran screaming while he snatched at them, hungry for more than flesh. Hungry for their terror, or maybe revenge, but mostly for the sweet hot emotions they spilled out into the air. Scream for me, he roared, the words sounding mangled through rotting pointed teeth.

"Shhhh." the wind scolded him, cooling where it had burned before.

Distracted for a moment he turned back to his rampage to find the village empty, the crushed buildings replaced by heavy fruit trees. Apples he knew, but as he reached for one the trees grew past his claw-like reach. Always denied, he lashed out, rending the bark and watching the sap ooze dark red in rivulets to the ground.

"Dammit you're strong." The wind sounded testier, and it occurred to Gaara for the first time that this wasn't real. Those perfect shining apples, the too bright sky, or his monstrous form were all some delusion. But that voice he knew from another place, and so he followed it.

The concept of opening your eyes when they're already open seemed impossible, but Gaara wasn't about to let impossible stop him from doing something. The trees blurred, merging with the dingy insides of a depressing little room, but in the center of his vision was the source of the voice. He'd been regarded with fear, reverence, anger, and any number of intense varieties of aggression from the sexual to the purely survivalist but the expression the pink haired girl wore was completely foreign to him.

His body felt heavy, like he had been drugged, but if she was going to kill him she would have done it when he was unconscious. Nothing about her bearing implied she wanted something from him so all he was left with was either she was going to engage in activities more depraved than outright killing him or this was some form of altruism. He considered either possibility equally viable.

"Awake again are you?" Her eyes darted around, but all he saw was fading apple trees and the wavy outline of a lamp next to them now. When her arm darted behind her he tried to catch it, preventing her, but it was like moving through quicksand and his fingers curled around air. The water cup she had grabbed was in her hands as she brought it up to his lips. "Drink. Or not."

Gaara stared at her and her slight smile faded as with a sigh she brought the cup to her own lips and drank a sip before pushing it back to him again. Taking a calculated risk, he accepted a few sips while he watched her with unblinking eyes.

"Did your mother ever tell you it's impolite to stare?"

"No."

His response surprised both of them. "Well, I'll tell you now then. I didn't expect you to be awake again so soon. You're lucky to be alive you know."

Yes. He was lucky. That was the word for it. Grimly, he watched the cup move back to his lips again and he shook his head until she pulled it back. Even that simple shake made his vision swim and only her concerned face grounded him.

"My friend Naruto bit into a red cap mushroom once on a dare and we had to rush him to Tsunade who made him throw it up straight away. He said he saw fairies and giant foxes following him for hours after and we all got yelled at for days for letting him do something so dumb."

Sakura, that was her name. He remembered that much from earlier, and he remembered threatening her as well. She was an idiot to bring a dangerous stranger into her home. The only people around were her and her grandmother. If the damned forest weren't so hard to navigate the other denizens he had noted since he arrived would have found them and slit their throats for all the food they had.

"What's your name?"

"Gaara." It cost him nothing and it meant nothing to her.

Her face scrunched like she had bit into something bitter. "Just Gaara?"

Giving no indication that he had heard her question he took some time to examine her further. Probably his age, maybe a little younger, everything about her screamed weak to him. Wide innocent eyes, smiling countenance, bright impractical clothes, she would probably have looked rounder if not for the ubiquitous leanness that everyone sported in this famine. As she flushed with annoyance at his manners, he thought that she must have a good life to be so welcoming of a stranger. His life had been ugly, so devoid of basic humanity, he wanted a piece of what she had for his own. The shock of that wanting left him cold once more. He must be confused.

"Just Gaara."

Sighing and rolling her eyes at him, she got up and walked over to where a bowl sat and brought it over to him. "Well, Gaara, I've got some porridge here for you even if it's cold now. Can you hold a spoon?"

"I can feed myself." He wondered how long it had been since he had a conversation with a person based around more than simple transactions. Long before the two months he had been wandering in exile. Being here, talking with the girl, he almost felt like the time before faded from the forefront of his thoughts.

She took a bite first, making a big show of it as if his distrust forced her into theatrics. The food was tasteless, but he was hungry, and when it came down to it he had eaten far worse under much less trying circumstances.

"My grandmother said you need some meat on your bones. You might even be handsome then." She looked like she wished she could snatch the words out of the air and stuff them back in her mouth.

Gaara didn't recall ever having been called handsome. The closest he ever came was when his misguided older brother, thinking he was helping him out, took him to a brothel at sixteen. The ladies, overly perfumed and made up, had touched him in a familiar way, calling him pretty, while he talked himself down from sliding a knife into them to stop the assault on his senses. None of their attention had been welcome, their fleshy bodies and wide fake smiles just driving home how nothing he was ever given was normal. That mockery of affection hadn't done anything for him and his brother declared Gaara a lost cause but a rogue voice told him if this girl had been there maybe it would have gone differently that night. The implications of having a thought like that he stowed for later with his usual efficient mental compartmentalization.

"You live here with your family but I only saw one other person." His voice cut through her embarrassment.

"So we're talking now?" As he suspected she wasn't good at maintaining silence. "I spend most of my time in Konoha. My family spends time in both locations." Vague answer, he approved, maybe she had a little more sense than he thought. "I would invite you to Konoha but I have a feeling you'll just be branded a sheep killer and run out of town."

The idea was so ludicrous, that the worst he could be considered was a sheep killer, Gaara felt the corners of his mouth twitch up.

"I'm glad you think that's funny. Personally I doubt you've killed any sheep because if you had mutton to eat you wouldn't be touching any mushrooms."

"Why are you doing all this?" He didn't expect any answer he could trust so he wasn't even sure why he asked.

"Why? Why feed you, make sure you don't freeze, let you sleep in my bed, and all that? I don't know. Something inside of me tells me to, and I listen to that voice. Maybe I just didn't want to leave a sick person in the woods." She gave him a sideways glance, narrowing her eyes. "But don't think I forgot about this." Pointing to the neat stitching in her dress he assumed she meant whatever injury he had done to her earlier. "You owe me."

Gaara wondered what he would have done to her if he had listened to the voices in his own head.

***

_The wolf changes its coat but not its way – Estonian saying___

_ _Despite being "less stout" than her son at that age according to the old woman, she still had some clothes packed away in a trunk that would basically fit him. His own clothes would need to be washed, and he could see to that when he felt better or wait until she did all the washing properly in a couple days. The material was thicker, less fine, and the strange pants itched. Clothes were looser in Sand, cotton more tightly woven, and he felt naked without his sword (which Sakura swore she would give back to him when he "proved" himself). Effectively, he felt caught. After the first long day alone in the house he was not strong enough to leave, nor weak enough for bed rest so Gaara followed Sakura around and helped her with the picking. As her grandmother had said "if you're just going to mope you can make yourself useful."_ _

_ _Unable to stand on a ladder without feeling dizzy, he still maintained he was fine and tried to keep pace with her and the old woman. It was the first time in many years he felt bad at a physical task set before him, and he blamed his recovery. Other than the vague spinning in his brain and itchy legs he had a full belly and people around him that neither feared him nor demanded anything taxing of him. The clamoring voice in his head that desired their blood died down to a whisper and that night he went to bed early and slept the whole night dreamlessly. It was as close to peace as he had known._ _

_ _"So why love?"_ _

_ _"What?" Gaara sputtered at breakfast, egg dropping out of his mouth onto his shirt._ _

_ _She tapped her forehead. Ah, of course. Under no circumstances did he want to share that memory with her, but he knew by now he needed to say something or she would persist in asking. Sakura was nothing if not tenacious. Gaara hadn't determined yet if it was one of her finer qualities._ _

_ _"It's there to remind me of my purpose."_ _

_ _"You're not very good at it then," She gave him that smile he was starting to recognize as uniquely hers, thin lipped and considering but never unkind. "Being loving I mean."_ _

_ _"That isn't what it means." He could practically taste the blood from that night and found he wasn't hungry for the last bites of his meal. None of his kills after that bothered him like the first._ _

_ _Sakura saw him withdraw it would seem because that expressive face of hers became all concern. "Hey, I was just teasing you. Sorry I asked."_ _

_ _No one at Sand had asked; no one would have dared. Her familiarity with him was becoming less upsetting by the hour and that thought in of itself was alarming him. Had the mushrooms done something to his brain?_ _

_ _He rolled up his sleeves and brushed the hair back from his forehead, it had gotten longer than he would have liked since he left Sand. The questions continued as they worked. He had preferred when she was silent next to him, swearing softly as they moved through the orchard picking and dropping the apples into bins. Sakura clearly seemed to ascribe to the tactic that if you used enough force and repetition eventually you would get an answer for something. And darn it all if it wasn't working._ _

_ _So tell me why people in Sand use khol? Do all the men use it too, or is it some fashion statement? What do you eat in the mornings there? What games do you play? How hot is it during the day? At night? In the shade? How do people stay cool? Are there trees there at all? How do you get water? What sort of music do people like? And on…._ _

_ _Sometimes Gaara even felt himself answering her involuntarily, like the words he had kept to himself for so many years were leaking from his lips. Her interrogation was much sweeter and far more effective than many professional jobs he had been plied with at various points—most of those situations that he had purposefully entered into to get closer to a target. At one point he found himself just staring at her lips while they moved, hearing nothing. She threw an apple at him when Sakura realized he wasn't listening, and he was gratified to see his arm snake out and catch it. His reflexes were almost back to normal._ _

_ _"Grandmother and I have been working all week, so tomorrow we're resting. You're lucky. A year or two ago she would have made us work straight through until pickup in a week. Naruto and Lee both are driving carts to pick everything up, I think you'll like them." Sakura laughed in the shade as they ate their midday meal and told him stories about her friends._ _

_ _If this is what normal people did, it was boring. Gaara had heard Temari and Kankuro complain of boredom before, but Gaara had never understood. There was always a corner to watch, a shadow to track, the next mission to plan, or someone to fight. Life for Gaara the successful assassin had been high tension all the time. Life for Gaara, Sakura Haruno's patient, was not exciting at all. Then again, even she admitted this was more monotonous than she was used to compared to Konoha. Gaara, more than anything, was starting to want to see this Konoha and meet these people she talked about._ _

_ _"All right you kids, back to work. Don't make me come over there!" Her grandmother's sharp voice brought him back to the present as Sakura grabbed him by the hands and hauled him to his feet before pushing him in the direction of his ladder with a laugh._ _

_ _"You heard her, back to work!"_ _

_ _Gaara had to consciously control his breathing as he recovered from her touch. It had been different when he was sick in bed, necessary somehow. Whatever she was doing to him, he both craved more of it and felt repulsed by it. If this was leading to whatever impulses that caused Kankuro to run after every pretty girl he saw Gaara wasn't sure he wanted any part of it, but he was pretty sure he didn't have a choice. Idly, he wondered what would happen if he offered to share the bed with Sakura tonight and decided against mentioning it only when he recalled how forceful that apple throw had been._ _

_ _He needed to recover, absolve his debt, and leave before these impulses caught up to him and made him lose his mind completely. If attachments were growing, he knew where that would lead. Absently he brushed his tattoo and wondered what life would have been like without the knowledge that love only existed for the purpose of controlling others._ _

_ _

_ _***_ _

_ _

_ _ _The wolf is made to be a predator – Estonian saying_ _ _

_ _"Today we clean!" Sakura gleefully greeted Gaara so early he wasn't sure it was actually morning. She was in a pair of pants and a baggy shirt taken from the pile of men's clothing that Gaara had been borrowing from as well. If this meant that they could finally clean his real clothes and he could stop itching then he would gladly do any laundry needed._ _

_ _The roaring fire tended by the old woman outside had a large pot over it and they took turns carrying buckets from the well to the pot. They ate breakfast outside while the water heated and soon enough they were scrubbing and stirring and wringing and drying. Everything was curious about it from the lye mixture that went into the boiling pot to the other soaps near the washboards that Sakura showed him how to use. They had him wash his own clothes before he tackled helping with the rest of the wash. Sakura scrubbed at bloodstains on the interior of her dress next to him intently and he wondered at how it had been less than a week since he had collapsed in the field._ _

_ _"Usually my mother and I take it to the laundry center, so we don't have to boil our own water or bring our own soap," Sakura said as she examined her red hands. "There are some advantages to living in a larger village."_ _

_ _Gaara had never done his own laundry, it had always been done for him, and he was satisfied learning something new even if he hoped he wouldn't have to do it again in the near future._ _

_ _"After we clean our clothes we get to clean ourselves." Sakura seemed less excited about that prospect. "Don't get me wrong, I love a nice bath, but the bath houses in the village are cheap and my family goes often. When I'm out here picking I just have to be used to grime."_ _

_ _"If you have energy to complain then you have energy to scrub!" Granny Haruno had ears like a bat._ _

_ _Sakura huffed and bent back to her work on some bed sheets. Even though she didn't seem tough or particularly muscular, like Temari's build, there was something about how Sakura attacked those sheets on the washboard that reminded Gaara of Temari's strength. He had eaten not long ago so he determined that the pang he felt near his stomach must be the feeling of missing someone._ _

_ _"Is there something on my face?" Sakura asked him, pushing her hair behind her ears. It immediately fell back in her face as she tilted her head in question. "Because you keep staring."_ _

_ _A tremor worked its way through him as he pointed to her cheek. Nothing was on it, but he felt like he needed to generate some sort of excuse. Sakura dipped her hand in the laundry water and rubbed at her cheek._ _

_ _"Thanks."_ _

_ _"Don't mention it." And he really hoped she wouldn't, not that there was anyone to mention it to around here._ _

_ _The midday meal came and went and before he knew it he and Sakura were stringing up laundry lines between the trees and clipping their clothes up to dry in the sun. It was all too idyllic to last, and his instincts proved to be entirely correct when he heard a scream from the cottage where the elder Haruno was fixing their supper._ _

_ _Every nerve fired and suddenly all the details around him came into sharper focus. The movement of bodies past the trees, the murmur of male voices, all the paths he could map from here to the house and what kind of cover he could expect to use. One thing was missing._ _

_ _"Where is my sword?" but he was talking to air because after the initial moment they froze on hearing the scream Sakura had taken off running even as the words left his lips. Unthinking action got people killed, and protective alarm bloomed in him, clouding his thinking._ _

_ _He took off on her heels, but Sakura's powerful legs and head start in the sprint meant he couldn't catch her before she reached the scene he had already calculated they would encounter: the old woman, at her doorstep with a growing pool of blood beneath her while one man picked through her clothes for valuables and another stood over him. More were undoubtedly inside, as people like this worked in packs. Here were Sakura's sheep killers, but they seemed to have moved to people with ease._ _

_ _Gaara peeled off, running to the tool shed at the edge of the orchard. Sakura just needed to live until he got there. His eye slid over the pitchfork and the hoe and landed on the shovel. It would have a similar weight and length to the sword he dearly wished he had with him. After he had acquired his weapon then everything became mathematical._ _

_ _He was already moving when he heard Sakura scream something nonsensical at the men standing over her grandmother, and as he rounded the back of the cottage he caught the beginning of her flying punch. If she had her whole weight behind it, that would at least provide a good distraction but a broken or dislocated jaw wouldn't be debilitating._ _

_ _By the time he had made it around behind the two men one had Sakura partially pinned to the ground. The other was yelling at the first, encouraging the first man to rip off her clothes and other extremely unoriginal suggestions but as none of it involved immediate bodily harm he took a moment to examine the inside of the building through the window. Two he could see, eating everything in sight and destroying whatever wasn't edible. All of them carried at least a knife, one of the men inside had a sword, poorly tended and not very sharp looking and he was currently using it to smash the kitchen window. They probably had no idea how to fight._ _

_ _Sakura's screams had become more urgent, less angry and more frightened, but then stopped abruptly so he immediately turned his attention back to her attackers. It seems she had been a little too successful because one man appeared to be nursing a dislocated shoulder while the other was just drawing back his hand to punch her again while she gurgled around what was most likely a broken nose spreading blood all over her face._ _

_ _Gaara saw no reason to ask questions of any of these men so he twisted the shovel sideways as he brought it sideways into Sakura's attacker's neck lodging it well into his spine. He hadn't thought it would go so far in so he had to take his foot and brace it against the man's back to pull it back while the corpse slumped, still on top of Sakura._ _

_ _Sparing a precious moment to meet her eyes and assure himself that she lived, he cursed himself for such inefficiency as the other man called out for the other members of their raid to come out and get him. It would have been more convenient if he had killed both men before checking on Sakura, but it was just another sign that she was making him go soft._ _

_ _The man with the dislocated shoulder had a shovel buried in his gut before three men ran out and saw the carnage with Gaara standing calming in the center of it all. The one with the sword who looked like he could possibly rub up to two brain cells together surveyed things and spoke to him slowly._ _

_ _"Now, kid, you don't want to do something you'll regret. If you just turn around now and walk away we might not even come after you. I'll even let you take your little girlfriend."_ _

_ _Gaara made the mistake of glancing over at Sakura who had pushed the still draining corpse off of her and was getting to her feet with an expression on her face he knew too well. The mix of horror, anger, and determination was so raw that despite everything he was struck by how beautiful she was._ _

_ _The attack was so obvious Gaara didn't even need to think about the neat pivot he used to sidestep the swipe of the sword. The other two men were looking for a way to participate in his dismemberment but didn't seem able to find an opening as Gaara danced with the sword. Unbidden, memories of his lessons came in choppy waves. _Imagine there's a bubble around you, then move every time you feel something encounter that bubble. Nothing will touch you.__ _

_ _Unused to waving it around so much, the sword bearing man's swipes slowed. The opportunity came and Gaara swept the taller man's legs out from under him and stepped on the hand clutching the sword hard enough to break any number of the man's fingers._ _

_ __If you're fighting a lot of people, make sure when you kill to make it messy and painful. You want them to fear you before they try to fight you._ The sword was in his hands while the two men with knives stood there stunned. Amateurs, he thought, just hungry thugs praying on what they thought was an old woman and a couple kids. Their "leader" didn't even have time to beg as Gaara planted the sword thought the man's chest. He struggled on the ground, dying loudly and spiting blood as Gaara met the eyes of the two remaining men._ _

_ _"Now, don't do something you'll regret," Gaara said, and smiled showing every one of his teeth. Unsurprisingly, they turned and ran into the woods._ _

_ _He turned to Sakura, and saw her clutching a knife in front of herself she must have taken off of the body that fell on top of her. It shook a little in her hand as he walked towards her slowly, certain the men were far enough away not to be a threat for the moment. Hunting them later would be another project, but right now Sakura was more important._ _

_ _"Stay back," She spoke quickly and he paused a body length away from her._ _

_ _He wanted to touch her, to tell her something comforting, but he had no words or even a glimmer of an idea what that would look like because it was out of the scope of his experience. Behind him, the gurgling man sighed and was silent. They were alone._ _

_ _"Who are you?" Sakura asked with tears in her eyes. The knife dropped next to her as her tears caught blood from her nose and dropped red stains onto her torn laundry day shirt. Gaara watched her begin to shiver and wished he had the ability to be shocked by what he had done. This was what he had been made to do, and he did it well, so all he felt beyond concern for Sakura was the satisfaction of being the one to come out alive yet again._ _

_ _"Gaara. Gaara of the Sand." He wished that could explain it all, but the only people that that name meant anything to were half a world away._ _


	3. Chapter 3

_One wolf doesn't desert the other. – Estonian saying_

Mechanically, Sakura took the opportunity while she was going through shock to set her nose back in place. It didn't take much to leverage the cartilage into place with a crunch and a flash of pain, so she figured it was as set as it was going to get. More blood began to flow out of her nostrils, over her lip, and dripped onto the already stained dirt. Gaara stood, absolutely and inhumanly still, and she continued to shake.

The most terrifying part of it all was that she realized she didn't feel anything. Her grandmother was dead, she had been beaten and almost raped, and three men had been murdered in front of her eyes (one of which had died on top of her) and she felt like an iced over pond in winter. As if to challenge her assessment a surge of emotional pain radiated from her center as a precursor to what she could expect to feel soon enough.

"Are you going to kill me?" It sounded stuffy, like she had a cold, as she finally directed words in Gaara's direction.

"_No._" He said it with conviction he'd never expressed before so she allowed herself the luxury of believing him.

"I need…" she felt like she was far away, completely removed from this place and this time. "I need to take a bath."

Gaara nodded, his eyes flicking around, from the edge of the woods to her face and then around him at the oozing mess. He folded the arms of one of the men, (the one whose head was only half attached) in an 'x' over his chest and grabbed him by the feet before beginning to drag him into the woods. Sakura watched him as he began to dispose of the first body and wondered if later she would feel grateful. She didn't want to know where he took them or what he did with them. And to think, she had actually wanted to find a corpse a week ago.

Slowly, careful to step around the pools of blood, Sakura made her way to her grandmother. Killed at her doorstep, the only thing Sakura knew was that it had been quick. Grandmother had been so strong, a weathered tree in her orchard, and this wasn't the way it should have ended for her. Anger at the unfairness of it all and the beastliness of people finally pierced the veil of her numbness.

Gathering up her grandmother, noting how light the old woman was, she carried her back into her bedroom. She laid her out on her grandmother's bed, bereft as it was of blankets and sheets, and then closed the door. Surveying the mess she didn't know what else to do but begin to clean it up. The broom was miraculously unbroken and she started with one end of the kitchen and moved everything on the floor into a pile on the other side. Once the floor was swept she looked at the fireplace and the living area where the small table there was overturned next to destroyed chairs and simply sat in the middle of the floor, thinking deeply about everything.

If Gaara hadn't been there she would have been raped and probably killed. But because Gaara had been there three men were dead. The way he moved had been surreal, like he wasn't even human. The whole event from the scream on through to carrying her grandmother into the bedroom replayed in her head and Sakura tried to see where she could have done something different to change the outcome. Unless she had been at a different place at a different time she didn't see how her grandmother could have been saved. If only she had noticed people approaching the house, if only she hadn't been so far away, if only…

"I thought you were taking a bath." Gaara stood in the doorway, blocking the afternoon light. His hair seemed like fire on his head, messy as it was. While not covered in as much blood as Sakura, none of it was his own and his clothes were spattered with it.

"I was going to but…" There was no good reason why she had changed course. Outside, near where the laundry was drying, water that had sat over the fire since they started hanging things to dry was ready to carry to the tub even if by this time the fire had died out. Probably they should relight it. Gaara's hands appeared in front of her offering to help her up. They were noticeably soft, she realized with some surprise, not like the hands of a farmer or even a fighter. Assassin, her brain hissed.

As soon as she was standing he dropped her hands, but he hovered next to her as she made her way outside. Even though the day wasn't cold, Sakura appreciated the fire once Gaara got it started again. He circled over to the drying laundry and brought back a kitchen cloth that he first dipped in the lukewarm water over the fire and then handed to her.

"For your face." He offered it to her, still searching her eyes for something. As she took it and began to gingerly wipe off her face she noticed that every time she swiped at her cheeks and lips there was more red on the cloth. Getting punched hurt, she knew that from various scraps growing up, but breaking your nose was definitely worse than the occasional black eye.

Gaara just sat there staring at her, like he was waiting for something. It was eerie, but no more surreal than anything else going on today. Tears started up again, out of nowhere, and finally he looked away.

"I'll leave tomorrow."

"NO!"

Her heart felt like it was jumping out of her chest. The idea of being alone was too hard, and as long as Gaara was here she had choices. She wouldn't go so far as to say she felt safe, but without Gaara there she felt like a sitting duck for whatever evil was coming next. If Gaara was evil, and she hadn't decided on that yet, then at least he was a known evil.

Awkwardly, Sakura got up and found the bathtub on its hook in the shed. She carried the old copper tub next to the fire and started pouring in the buckets of hot water while Gaara watched with veiled interest. He made no move towards her, simply poked at the fire and watched.

"Here are the rules," Sakura eyed the laundry drying and thought about how much cover it would provide, but while she couldn't be seen she also couldn't see and thoughts of the two escaped men returning were plaguing her already. "Face away from the tub at all times. Unless I am in _mortal danger_ you are not to even think about turning around."

Gaara shrugged and began to get up.

"And," he paused, looking at her as she pulled back her outstretched hand. It had been entirely involuntary. "If you could just stay close it would be… _comforting._"

His eyes widened in surprise only briefly before he dutifully sat back down and rotated away from her. Taking a few long moments to see if he was going to try to sneak a peak, she finally pulled off all the clothes she had been wearing and stuffed them quickly next to the burning logs under the water pot before climbing into the tub. The fire was so bright while the clothes burned that she couldn't look at it.

Things that hadn't hurt until that moment began to ache, both physically and mentally. Talking herself down from scrubbing skin until it was raw, she instead very thoroughly washed herself from hair to toes and carefully thought about nothing. Gaara, who she always had one eye on, didn't move except to tilt his head back and forth and scan the tree line ahead of them. It was still hard to resolve the idea in her mind that a killer could also be a protector, but it made her think back to something Tsunade had said when Sakura had lamented about the fact that they hardly ever had patients to treat. _You have no idea how hard it is when you're waiting for people to come to you to die. Be grateful to be a training doctor in peacetime._ Those who had lived through war were tempered with different instincts and ideals. She couldn't pretend to understand if this was just a taste.

What would she tell her dad? What was going to happen to the orchard? What about the house and the tools and all the pieces of Haruno family history? What about Gaara? _Yes_, whispered a silky voice in her mind, _what about Gaara?_ Overwhelmed, she pulled herself out of the water suddenly to shrink back in the tub again just as fast.

"Gaara," Sakura cleared her throat and said his name louder when he didn't react at first. "Can you get my red dress and, ugh, my underclothes from the clothes line? Just nod if you know where to find it all."

The water was murky and pink and she was happy to climb out of it at last and wrap herself in a sheet to begin to dry off. Gaara arrived back shortly after she got out and Sakura dressed behind the shed before they emptied the tub and refilled it with water from the pot. Sakura took her turn scanning the forest for trouble while he cleaned off. He made almost no noise so when he put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention she started.

Sighing what she hoped was relief as she realized it was him, she thought how foreign he seemed to her again now that he was in the clothes he had arrived in. It was almost dark out now, and the laundry still needed to be taken in and folded. Sakura didn't have the heart for it, feeling like her duty to fulfill this basic chore was at war with the impulse that mundane activities had no place on a day like today. Instead, they sat by the fire and Gaara put on more logs. While not sitting next to her, he was close enough that she could make out how his eyes darted over at her every now and then. After hours of anguish and numbness in turns she felt too exhausted to do anything, even eat.

"Have you killed many people?"

Over the sound of the fire and feeling of the cool wind making her shiver, she heard his soft reply. "Yes."

"Do you enjoy it?" Inside of herself she knew that whatever he answered was going to determine a lot of things for her in the coming days.

He stared at the fire for a moment, then met her eyes and she could see reflections of twisting light in them. "If you are trained to do something, let's say you do it well, and you are praised and rewarded for what you do… isn't it natural to come to like it?"

Sakura was wary of him as she finally ventured into the cottage and came back with bread, cheese, apples and some blankets. Tossing him food and a blanket she noted how his stare bore into her. He was expecting something from her, but she wasn't sure what. Today of all days she wasn't sure what she had to give. He didn't want her pity.

"Tomorrow I'll start back to Konoha, if you'll come with me. If you don't want to go with me then I'll wait until the cart comes in another few days." A week alone in the cottage with her grandmother's body and the memory of today sounded like her own personal hell, but she wasn't going to force him to encounter her village with the distrust and possible violence that had been brewing there. Then again he would be the most dangerous person in Konoha once they arrived.

Wrapping her shoulders in the blanket she bit into her cheese and felt it move as a lump down her dry throat. "If it makes any difference to you, I want you to stay with me."

Gaara took a bite of his apple.

***

_Even the well-trained wolf won't become a lamb. – Armenian saying_

After she fell asleep he took the opportunity to slide closer to her. The fire was nearly dead and he was full, clean, comfortable, and energized from his short fight that day. At his best drenched in blood, his teacher had said of him once. The hand he casually rested on his thigh was so close to her head that if he reached out his pinky he could touch her hair. Merely the fact that he wanted it so much was reason to deny the action. The perverse logic that had guided him up until he had poisoned himself at her doorstep demanded he disappear into the night because to travel with her would only lead to further attachment, and the tattoo on his forehead was supposed to guard him against falling for this trick a second time.

Saving her life may have repaid the debt he owed her, but somehow it had tied him to her even more securely. Sakura had asked him to stay. Even he knew how this manipulated emotions he hadn't admitted he possessed until she said the words. To be wanted after years of being merely tolerated by the people who were supposed to value him was intoxicating. Killing had been a purpose in of itself, a way to protect himself and by extension his village, but it had always been inherently selfish to him. Today, as he was dragging the bodies to a small gully where the forest would dispose of them more handily than he could, he thought about how it hadn't been about his own survival today at the core. He had killed for her, and because of her personality type and the hurt she had gone through he knew she wouldn't find that charming or romantic.

Finally shifting, he slid a hand under her head and leaned it against his thigh. You needed to keep a broken nose elevated; even she couldn't argue with that if she woke up. Dark memories from his years in Sand and the way his thigh felt like it was on fire everywhere she touched him kept him awake in turns that night. The feeling of sleepless frayed nerves was so familiar he almost enjoyed the way his eyes felt like they sunk into his skull. It wasn't even dawn when Sakura woke up and groaned. Overnight he noted that the bruising had became fairly pronounced on her face and it couldn't be comfortable.

Sakura looked up at him, squeezed her eyes shut, then looked back up at him again. "I guess it all happened, then."

No response seemed needed so instead he watched her get up, stretch and then gather the blankets to take indoors. She moved slowly and, while he gave no indication that he saw her doing it, he knew she kept looking back at him. Finally noticing the laundry once Sakura was out of his sight, he took it all down damp as it was and brought it indoors to find her tying up a pack firmly. He noticed she had only prepped for one and he felt suddenly cold.

"Ah the laundry," she spoke as if she was just remembering it existed. "Thank you, Gaara." His name felt like a caress and something electric crawled down his spine.

No questions were asked and some of the tension in his frame eased. He couldn't verbalize any of the complications he saw developing between them, and if she just allowed him to exist near her maybe things would resolve themselves. Nearby he noticed his sword leaning against a cupboard on the floor, looking a little dirty but no different. He moved to pick it up slowly, letting her see him inspect his weapon. He wanted to use it again, he knew that, and he thought to the men who had escaped into the woods again with a dark promise to himself.

"Seemed silly to keep it hidden now." She flashed a smile that turned into a faraway look. If she thought too much about yesterday they might not leave today, and she had said it was a half a day's walk.

"We should go." Gaara wanted to move, to touch her, but he held back. He wasn't sure he could stop from wanting to do more and he doubly wasn't sure enough of himself to know that it wouldn't end in violence. The instinct was still there to tear into her and destroy hot on the heels of his kills yesterday, but it warred with a new impulse and he felt his heart speed up in anticipation as his palms grew sweaty. He felt inadequate to join her in her idyllic life, but she was choosing him and he couldn't say no.

Sakura, oblivious to all this and squinting at him with her puffy black eye, gave him that tight smile of hers. "Follow me then,"

And he would, because not following her was impossible.


End file.
